


stardust

by love_killed_the_superstar



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Bubbled, Episode: s01e29 Space Race, Episode: s03e28 Bubbled, Gen, Growing Up, POV Second Person, Space Race
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-03
Updated: 2016-09-03
Packaged: 2018-08-12 17:45:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7943482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/love_killed_the_superstar/pseuds/love_killed_the_superstar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You came from the stars, but you don't think you want to go back even if that choice is yours to make.</p>
<p>(A response to Space Race, and Bubbled.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	stardust

**Author's Note:**

> an experimental second person pov piece from steven's perspective, from his birth until bubbled. someone mentioned space race at sdcc 2016 and ian and rebecca laughed it off with the 'can't say, it's a spoiler, will be revealed soon' talk, so i wanted to reflect on how steven's thoughts on space and his origins have changed from space race to now, especially now that they officially have a spaceship to use that will definitely survive space (no need to worry, greg).

You were born in late summer, and while you don't have any memories from that time, Dad tells you that when your mother last looked up at the early morning sky, she smiled so brightly that he knew she was at peace. That thought used to satisfy you. You aren't so sure anymore.

You can't be sure, but you don't think the gems took it too well. Garnet was there from the start, looking after you, and she is in your earliest memories, even though she wasn't too helpful when you cried or needed changing. You remember Amethyst always being there too, but you've heard tales of her travelling the world around the year you were born, so you get the feeling she did a little exploring to come to terms with losing the closest thing to a mother figure she ever had. But you know now that she essentially helped raise Sour Cream, so you figure that once she did come back, she did a better job at getting you to smile than Garnet did, even if Garnet gave the best warm hugs and the best cold gems to teethe on.

You don't remember Pearl in your earliest memories, but that's because a lot of the time she was working quietly for you, preparing bottles of baby formula and mashed up vegetables, folding your baby clothes, organising your toy chest and play mat. The very early memories of her that you do remember involve constructing the house, long days sitting on the porch and watching her switch out tools, binding and nailing and _building._ The house springing up before your very eyes, and the look of satisfaction – and also sadness, a fact you only recall later on in life – on her face at seeing the new creation built around the enormous statue that you can always remember being there. It took a while for her to look at you the way she looked at the house, but when she did, it was from a close range, no longer nervously hovering. There were hugs, encouragement, rules, caring. She could somehow clean your cuts with a sprinkle of floral-scented pink water, the origins of which you didn't discover until much later, and you beamed and said her name. She teared up, and her hugs only grew tighter from then on, as if she was scared you'd slip from her arms.

You didn't find out about the gems being magical until later, when it occurred to you that Dad didn't have a gem in _his_ belly button and neither did the board walk kids, so what did that make you? The bedtime stories Dad and the gems told about your mother saving the world suddenly made a lot more sense, because she had real magic and so would you, some day! Now, along with the regular childhood milestones like walking, talking, gaining your teeth, losing your teeth (something that freaked even Garnet out, until Dad confirmed that it was _supposed_ to happen), there was also summoning a weapon, gaining healing powers, learning to float. You just didn't know it yet, and neither did they. It didn't stop the expectations from piling up.

A lot weren't even the good kind. Amethyst was all too happy to accept that you'd never be able to accomplish a lot of the things that gems could do, and that was okay because she got along with other humans just fine. (Didn't stop it from hurting, though. You wanted to be useful, you really did.) Pearl, on the other hand, was convinced you had infinite potential inside of you, and used various methods to draw it out (you didn't quite understand petal dances, but you liked the idea that hard work and dedication would amount to something) despite very low success rates. She praised the things that weren't magical too, she even filmed your first steps for Dad while he was working a shift at the car wash, but there was always that longing there for a missing piece – some sort of connection she was searching for between you and Mom.

The nervous hovering returned with force after you summoned your shield for the first time. You went back to being well-meaning strangers, and it hurt.

Garnet didn't try to push you one way or the other – said you'd work things out, in your own Steven-y way – and that was what you liked the best, because expectations, good or bad, still ultimately made you feel inadequate when they weren't met either way.

And then it all happened, like a meteor shower, fleeting and exciting and bright. You grew; they grew with you. You summoned your shield, created your bubble, earned your healing powers. All they said was her, her, her, never once you, never once just Steven. Then you fused, you became 'they'. A phenomena, unprecedented and wonderful. _Stevonnie._ Connie was a binding force that kept you together, reminding you that it's okay to be you and to cry and to feel hard done by when life continues to throw you around like a slew of incoming asteroids, and after fusing with her for the first time, you started to remember what it meant to be you and not her. Steven, not the lost son in the shadow of Rose Quartz.

Your first interactions with space took place in these confusing times. Lapis Lazuli sucked the water into the sky, and you sat with her as you saw the wonders of the cosmos that Pearl spoke of so fondly for the first time. Seeing them so much closer than from your bedroom window was an experience that filled you with amazement and wonder. You were happy to see the stars, until you chased them once again, with Pearl steering the ship to your impending doom. You don't know how you stopped her. Any faster and you would have both been sent hurtling into space, burned up in the atmosphere, ceased to be. Maybe that was what held her back. After that time, you started to fear what lay beyond the protective bubble of the Earth.

Then the invasion came. You were forced to accept the truth – you came from the stars that you feared so much. It was scary, and you hated it, and more than anything, you knew that without you, without your shield _(yes, your shield, you couldn't afford to sell yourself short at a time like this)_ your family would be blown to stardust, and you'd lose them in the sand by the time you returned to Beach City. When you woke up in space, that sinking feeling returned, like a constant need to escape but having nowhere to run to. If the desperate need to reunite with the gems wasn't so urgent, you'd fear the end.

Space continued to loom over you, even when you were safely back on Earth, cleaning up the residue. It wasn't easy, learning more and more about your heritage, the place you came from and what it did to gems like Pearl for existing, like Amethyst for not growing as she was expected, for Garnet to exist for love and not conflict. You didn't like where the puzzle pieces were pointing to, and the more you thought about Rose Quartz, about Lapis and Jasper and Peridot, the less you realised you wanted to know. Believing your mother was a superhero of justice, a magical woman with the power to save the world, was a fairytale spoken of in an easier time for everybody. You wished it could go back to that.

You don't know why you thought the moon would be any different. Maybe, you thought, it would be a trust exercise for Peridot, to see how she responded back in the capable hands of Homeworld technology. Maybe you just wanted to see a place belonging to the diamonds, to really understand what they had created your gem for. It was different and fun and exciting until Peridot showed you just what gemkind was planning for the Earth before the rebellion. Seeing a planned Homeworld colony, seeing Yellow Diamond, seeing other pearls walking around like secretaries, seeing the cluster as it is, fractions of gems forced together beyond their control and searching for themselves, seeing gems losing their minds in a corruption sent to them from beyond the stars... you can't deny any longer that what space holds absolutely terrifies you.

Bismuth was different. She believed in you, she told you that you could be anything and anyone you wanted to be. She told you what Mom told her, but she filled you with warmth and for a moment back there, you really believed it. But then she put a weapon in your hands, a weapon to shatter gems, and you knew you couldn't take it from her. Rose Quartz bubbled her, hid her from the rest of the Crystal Gems, and you can't understand why. Maybe, in the grand scheme of things, it was what was best, but you can't justify her decision to keep Bismuth sealed away while getting to live the freedom that the both of them earned. You put her back in the bubble, but this time, you told them everything. You know they miss her, and you know they're beginning to doubt her as much as you are. You just don't know how to bring it up.

Some time later, the rubies you played baseball with return, and you went back to the moon. You found out the truth, the terrible, horrifying truth that you know they tried their hardest to keep from you. Even after all the little details added up in your head (she didn't even tell them about Bismuth or Lion, did you really think she'd tell them the really messed up things?!) you couldn't bring yourself to accept it.

“Rose Quartz would never do that!” you cried, and in the blink of an eye, you were being dragged out into space, watching the rubies scatter. It was empty, and dark, and all around you felt cold and isolated. Space was scarier than you'd ever pictured.

Eyeball picked a fight with you, tried to kill you, and you – you just couldn't take it anymore. You forced her out and for all you know she could be dead out there now. You healed her, but who knows how long until her gem is cracked again, before she shatters and her gem becomes space debris.

All you can think about, more than Jasper, Bismuth and Eyeball combined, is the weight of what your mother has done. _Rose Quartz, leader of the Crystal Gems, shattered Pink Diamond._

Some time later, when Garnet is steering the ship and Amethyst is staring out into space (another thing Smokey Quartz has in common with Steven and Amethyst, as it would turn out, is an overwhelming fear of space, and the unchartered worlds that it holds beyond sight), Pearl takes a seat next to you.

“Now that we have a spaceship,” she says in a quiet voice, “maybe I can show you the cosmos sometime, like we promised.”

You stare straight ahead, catching a glimpse of the stars and feeling sick and hollow in your stomach.

“No thanks,” you say. “I've seen enough of space for one lifetime.”

She seems curious, though not entirely surprised by this revelation – after all, you did just almost succumb to death in the vacuum of space. “You don't want to see it some day? It's where you come from. It's your heritage.”

“But Earth is my home,” you say, barely keeping your voice steady. “I don't belong in space anymore.”

You came from the stars, but you don't think you want to go back even if that choice is yours to make.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> anyway its coming up to 6am so i'm gonna sleep, let me know what you think!


End file.
